PFA Blog – The Poker Game By Michael Leiman

by Mike Melendez | Feb 24, 2018 | Blogs

The Poker Game By Michael Leiman

The competition at the five paddleball courts off Carmine Street in Manhattan was ferocious. No one wanted to lose and all of us fought like mad, yelled like mad, disputed calls like mad, to avoid it. But, in the end, one team got to 15 before the other. The winner stayed on. The loser trudged to the sidelines to await their next chance.

And wait. And sometimes wait some more. The courts were not just ferocious. They were crowded. Sometimes the waits extended to ten games. And waiting was not something we were good at. We were competitive athletes and wanted to do something. Well, there was a bocce area behind the courts if you wanted to roll a ball. And there was a small softball field where you could kick a soccer ball. Or you could go to the store and get something to drink.

Billy Abolafia did none of those things. Billy was one of the characters at Carmine Street. Tall, powerfully built, with long, curly hair, he was a charismatic figure that drew people to him. He was also a gambler. He brought his cards and set up a poker game on the cement tables and wooden benches just a few feet beyond the courts. Losing players came to join in. I came to join in.

The game was quarter/half. Open for a quarter with three raises allowed. If someone showed a pair the betting began at 50 cents. Not a small amount of money in the late 1980s, but limited enough that no one could get badly hurt. Just a few dollars would change hands. Then Billy suggested that the very last bet go to a dollar. Hmmm, a dollar bet followed by three raises, that would make $4 on just one card. Hey, the game was getting interesting! Too interesting, that is, too remain at an outdoor table with strangers now watching with players that came and went whenever their turn on the courts came up, with dollar bills flying around and being blown by the wind. We took the game indoors. To the apartment on the far West Side that Billy shared with his girlfriend. Now the poker game wasn’t interrupted by anything. We’d play for hours; sometimes all night.

Thing had become serious. We were, after all, serious competitors. The quarters and half dollars disappeared. Now the game was $1/$2. At Billy’s suggestion, the final bet became $5, then $10. Raise that three times and…now we were talking REAL money!

We mostly played a silly game, however, Baseball. Baseball was generally a 7 card stud game…2 closed cards followed by 4 open cards with a bet on each one and concluding with one final card. Threes and nines were wild. An open four got you another card. Crazy! In my first night of playing I couldn’t figure out what a likely winning hand was.  Until I did!

No way you could win with less than four jacks. You couldn’t feel confident with less than four aces. I built my strategy around that insight. I’d drop out early if it seemed improbable that my hand would be that good. I’d save my big money bets for the times my cards were likely winners. Billy was still the best player at the table but now I had a clear insight into the game.

Two things kept most everyone else from developing the same clarity. All our players came from Carmine Street, but not all of them were paddleball players. Two of them were the court’s drug dealers. Now call me naive, but I didn’t know we had drug dealers. But, apparently, we did. And they were nice guys. They brought their “product” to the table and it was free for anyone who wanted it. As was the beer. I partook of nothing. That gave me an awfully big advantage.

And then Anita Maldonado joined the game! I love Anita. She is an exciting, fun person who was also the reigning woman’s singles and doubles champion. She was among the fiercest competitors I’ve ever met. No lead over her was ever safe. She didn’t (and likely still doesn’t) know the meaning of give up. Her oft stated motto: “You’ve got to be in it to win it.” A GREAT attitude in sports. NOT a good one in poker where “you’ve got to know when to hold em, know when to fold em.” Leave a likely losing hand early and you drop a few bucks. Fight an unwinnable battle to the end and you can lose a lot! Anita, the drug dealers and a few others often fought to the bitter end.

My philosophy was different. Play sober, play conservative and go in big when I recognized my cards were likely the winner. The drug dealers brought lots of cash and they didn’t seem to mind when they lost it. They just seemed puzzled when their hands were nowhere close to what the winners held. To cheer them up I’d smile and remind them: “You’ve got to be in it to win it.” No matter their probability of winning, they remained in it!

In one memorable hand I was fighting it out with Anita. I held a couple of wild cards and bet strong. Anita, who didn’t seem to have much, stayed with me and then, towards the end, raised aggressively. My reading of the hand was that I was almost the sure winner but Anita’s strong bets scared me. I backed off, merely calling her at the end.

“What do you have?” I asked nervously.

“A pair of aces.”

“Aces?” I responded, incredulously. Maybe I’d heard wrong. “You have a pair of aces?”

“Yeah, aces. What do you have?”

“Four kings,” I replied, pulling in all the chips. Wow!

My gosh, how could she have stayed in with aces? A game with a million wild cards and you’re in with aces? And then of course I remembered: “You’ve got to be in it to win it.”

And that’s how, though I did not win all the time at Carmine I certainly did at Billy’s!

The losing, however, was not good for the drug dealers. One of them, Larry, called and asked me for a $1000 loan to help him buy “product.” He’d pay me back in a week along with an extra hundred. I declined. I’d turned my back on the opportunity to get into the drug racket!

The game went on without the out of funds drug dealers, but it had grown crazy. Somehow the allowable bet on the last card had morphed to $100. Three raises could bring that to $400. None of us could afford that kind of money. One night I won close to $1000 but went home with $125 and a pocketful of IOUs.

A non-Carmine Street guy joined the game. His name was Mike. His nickname was Psycho. Psycho Mike. I soon discovered why. When he learned that I was a psychotherapist he accused me of cheating by reading people’s minds. I learned from Billy that Psycho Mike generally carried a gun. I did the math: Big money, cocaine, a weapon and paranoia added to a combination I didn’t want to deal with.

The Poker Game was over for me!

The Incredible Day Howie Hammer and John Bruschi Met Their Match – By David Siegel

by Mike Melendez | Sep 11, 2017 | Blogs

Let’s go back to 1971 when paddleball was starting to take off at the city playgrounds, up in the Catskills, in Florida and the many beach clubs in the NYC area. It was played with wooden paddles and a “555” handball. The man who was at the forefront of the flourishing game was Howie Hammer. He and his partner John Bruschi unquestionably comprised the best doubles team in the game, having won the recent American Paddleball Association championship. Besides being a great player, Howie truly wanted to help the game grow. He wrote a book, taught the game in college, and during this summer he assembled a touring crew of top players. The group included John, Steve Rothfeld and Dennis Majorino. They visited the beach clubs and other venues, conducting mini-clinics and playing exhibitions against the best of the local players. On July 25th, the show came to Brooklyn’s Brighton Beach Baths (BBB), which contained Garber Stadium. I was there and what happened was amazing.

BBB had many fine wooden wall courts plus one showcase court in Garber Stadium. The bleacher seats that surrounded the court could accommodate perhaps a thousand people, and they were packed that day. Though the Garber court was a true-bounce, well maintained court, it was unlike any other paddleball court in that the wooden wall was super live and very prone to killers staying down.

The program started with a match between Steve Rothfeld and Dennis Majorino vs. two BBB kids, Anthony Cirillo, age 16, and Hank Grassi Jr.,15. Most of you remember or have heard about Steve, who went on to become one of the best players in the game. He was in his early twenties at the time and already a terrific player. Dennis, also in his twenties, was every bit Steve’s equal. Unfortunately, he did not stay with the game and sadly has since passed away, far too young. Who would have thought that the two kids could even give Steve and Dennis a game? Well, they gave them all they could handle in a thrilling match, finally going down 21-17. The crowd loved it!

But that just whetted the appetite for the fans for the excitement that was to come. The feature match pitted Howie and John against Peter Grassi, Hankie’s 17 year old brother, and their Dad, Hank Grassi Sr., who was 45 at the time. It’s ironic that in the present paddleball era, 45 is actually young, but back in those days, Hank Sr., who was a very good, steady player, was considered old. Peter was a kid, inexperienced as far as playing top competition and an unknown in the paddleball world. Howie and John were in their early 30s, highly skilled, in their prime – the very best in the game.

The game started off as expected, with Howie and John taking an 8-3 lead. They were playing well and Peter was cold. The champs seemed destined to an easy win. Peter related to me what occurred next. Hank told Peter, who was playing the left side, that they should switch sides. Peter “insubordinated” his Dad and told him “Absolutely not!” At the same time, Peter, who was accustomed to playing shirtless and had been wearing a borrowed jersey, decided to toss the shirt. Why had he been wearing it? Peter told me that prior to the game, Howie had asked him to wear a shirt to add “class” to the game. From that point on, Peter caught fire with an incredible offensive display of killers. He was literally unstoppable, in an unconscious zone. By one account, he hit 17 kill shots total for the game! They beat the best team in paddleball 21-12!

How could this happen? In retrospect, Peter and Hank had a home court advantage. They were accustomed to this uniquely live court and Howie and John were not. I recall that the following year, the APA tournament was held at BBB, which Howie and John won, the final match was not played at Garber, but on one of the side courts. I believe that Howie requested this. Another factor in the Grassi win was the vocal support of the home crowd. But the most significant reason was that Peter, despite his youth and inexperience in top competition, was a terrific, super-confident, steady and aggressive offensive player. Perhaps he was too young to get nervous and become overwhelmed by the event. He recalled that he truly believed he was going to win and even told this to a friend before the game. I’m certain Howie and John underestimated Peter’s ability.

Immediately after the game Howie grabbed the megaphone and started the paddleball clinic. To paraphrase his first line: “I think I’m going to let Peter run the clinic!”

Who is Peter Grassi? Peter started playing paddleball at age 10 at the Brooklyn’s Raven Hall and then Washington Baths. When these beach clubs closed, he moved on with his family to Brighton Beach Baths and he absolutely loved it. Except for playing some in Manhattan Beach during the 2 month off-season (BBB was open 10 months), he never traveled to play among the other players in the city. He did play against many fine players at BBB and was always one of the best. Peter is probably the only player to ever use the Knight Official Tournament Paddle, which he originally bought from a street vendor. One story he related to me was about the day Victor Niederhoffer came to the beach club to play paddleball and he challenged Peter to a singles game, spotting him 5 points in a 25 point game. Peter beat him by 6 points, probably enabling some fellow BBB’ers to win some wagers. (Peter did not bet!) Niederhoffer at the time was the number one squash player in the US and also the former paddleball singles and doubles champ. (You can look it up!) When the beach club closed in 1997, Peter pretty much stopped playing paddleball.

Hank Sr. was an excellent athlete who was also terrific in four wall paddleball, paddle tennis and handball. He passed away in 2016 at age 90. Hankie did not stick with paddleball, but was, and is, a great racquet athlete, excelling in tennis, racquetball, paddle tennis and pickleball.

July 25th, 1971 was a great day for paddleball. Fortunately, in addition to the memories, we have some terrific photos. Be sure to check them out!